>> well, that's the big -- that's part of the reason why the obama administration has done in the views of many so little toward getting president assad out, and that's because they are just really afraid. syria looks -- syria would be so much worse. you saw the break-up of iraq after the united states invasion in 2003. syria would be that times 10. and there's a lot of worry about what are you going to do with that? you have a worry about the slaughter of the allies in the mountains. you have to worry about just this whole break-up and who would govern this region that is so, so -- this country that is so critical for the whole region. but i do think, though, that chemical weapons would be sort of -- that -- i think for the obama administration, that's a line that they would have trouble defending their passivity so far if assad crossed. that's a hard one. it's hard for me to imagine them not doing anything. >> but given that they haven't really done very much over the past 21 months, and they haven't done very much at all, it's not implausible that they would not do the declarative th